I really don't want to have a girlfriend.

"We should have installed a GPS tracking app on his phone beforehand... Even with my 'Ayu Sensor,' I still can't find his location in such a large city as Chiba."

With a click of her tongue in dissatisfaction, Natsukawa Masaki put away her phone and began to ponder, resting her chin on her hand.

Ayu is going to a study session with her classmates, so she should be at a library or a family restaurant; but there are at least dozens of family restaurants in the entire Chiba city area, not to mention libraries of all sizes, so it's impossible to pinpoint her location based on that alone...

Trying to catch someone cheating and give them a little surprise is about as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack.

"In that case, we can only believe in the law that Stand users are attracted to each other."

In short, take action first and talk later.

Having made a decisive decision, Natsukawa Masuzu locked the door and intended to take the elevator directly to the first floor, but the elevator opened once halfway down the way.

A stylish and mature beauty walked in. Upon seeing her leaning against the corner of the elevator, she paused in surprise, her eyes slowly narrowing.

He immediately gave her a polite smile, turned around and pressed the close button, putting his hands into his coat pockets.

The elevator descended again, and the quiet air enveloped the two of them, with only their barely audible breathing audible.

For some reason, looking at the woman's slender back, Natsukawa Masaki couldn't relax.

It was like an ordinary person encountering a Pillar Man; the oppressive aura emanating from that high-level life form made her inexplicably uneasy.

The elevator descended at an even slower pace than usual, going down to the third floor, then the second floor, then the first floor...

Suddenly, the frozen silence was broken by a clear and gentle voice, which simultaneously stirred the taut nerves.

"Hey, I'm telling you—"

A being named Yukino Yukinoshita turned her head with an intrigued smile on her face.

His dark pupils were fixed on Natsukawa Masaki behind him, as deep and unfathomable as a cheetah that had caught its prey and would not let go until it achieved its goal.

"You look familiar. Have we met somewhere before?"

Natsukawa Masaki: "..."

It's this oldest and most cliché way of picking up girls?!

△

The study session ended smoothly, and I parted ways with Yui Yuigahama at the slope. We didn't encounter anyone trying to cause trouble throughout the entire session.

Aside from Chizuru Ichinose, in a way, she even helped motivate Yui Yuigahama to study, making her a good person with similar emotional intelligence to herself.

His girlfriend didn't send any harassing messages, his cute little sister was waiting for him at home, and there weren't many middle-aged women crowding the supermarket today... All these happy things combined to create what should have been a dreamlike, blissful time.

However, right now, Yuu Tenkuji was standing behind the shelf, glancing out of the corner of her eye at a chestnut-haired girl picking out green onions, and her expression became subtle.

Why is she here?

Even though the Yuuki family's house is quite a distance from this supermarket, and this place isn't on the route home from Black Lily Girls' Academy, why is Asuna—Yuuki Asuna—appearing in front of him?

Before getting down to business, let's briefly review the background.

Asuna Yuuki, whose online name is Asuna, is one of his ex-girlfriends, a beautiful girl with whom he recently had a "peaceful breakup".

Intelligent and agile, with a bust size between C and D, she was less than ten meters away, cautiously examining the green onions on the shelf, with meat, eggs, and other ingredients hanging in a basket on her slender arm.

Her long, smooth hair was tied into a single ponytail, swaying gently behind her; her features were delicate and beautiful, and her temperament was as gentle and virtuous as that of a young married woman. Even the cashier at the counter couldn't help but glance at her frequently, gradually becoming infatuated with the faint, gentle smile on the girl's lips, almost to the point of approaching her directly.

To be fair, Yuu Tenkuji can understand that feeling.

After all, she was a girl he once liked, and he knew better than anyone what kind of charm she had—even though he no longer felt that spark, the memory of liking her was still deeply etched in his heart.

Driven by some impulse, even though he had promised Asuna that he would "wait for her in the future," Tenkuji Yu still made an avoidance move, unwilling to let her see him.

He simply hid behind the shelf next door, casually observing the girl's virtuous manner as she shopped for groceries.

"...It seems you're doing quite well."

The girl had a rosy complexion and relaxed eyes. The tangled and gloomy aura she had when they first met had completely disappeared. She was like a bird that had flown to the top of a tree and was singing in the sky. There were no more shackles to bind her free wings.

Like a new life—

As the word flashed through her mind, Yuu Tenkuji couldn't help but smile with satisfaction.

It doesn't matter if you don't remember, it doesn't matter if you don't wait—there's no need to have any expectations, just live peacefully for the rest of your lives.

"May you continue to be happy, Asuna Yuuki."

After taking one last look at the girl picking up the scallion and reflexively spitting it twice into the air, Yuu Tenkuji stopped lingering, turned away from the shelf behind her, and headed towards the cashier counter.

After quickly checking out and bagging his items, he headed towards the second supermarket, pondering what ingredients he still needed for dinner.

—His face showed only relief and lightness, without any lingering attachment or regret.

"Ok?"

Inside the supermarket.

The girl suddenly stopped waving the scallion, and as if sensing something, she turned around, her chestnut ponytail twirling halfway before falling lightly to her chest.

She looked around but didn't find anything noteworthy...

The feeling of my heart racing just now was like an illusion, and I had no clue what I had missed or what emptiness I felt.

Asuna Yuuki touched her chest, her brow furrowing involuntarily, her eyes filled with deep confusion.

Why... do I suddenly feel so unwell?

Why does the feeling of forgetting something suddenly become so clear?

And why would I want to shout to someone, "Wait, don't go!"...

Where is that person now?

Asuna Yuuki bit her lip, lowered her head in thought, and unconsciously clenched her fists, trying to dig out clues from the depths of her memory.

After a long while, as if she suddenly remembered something, she opened her eyes wide and raised her head in disbelief.

"...I ruined the scallion!!!"

The scallion lying lifelessly in her palm successfully diverted her attention from her sorrow and resentment. She quickly returned to the shelf and picked out a few more bunches of scallions as compensation, hoping the shop assistant wouldn't cause her any trouble.

Even now, Asuna Yuuki has not yet woken up from her false dream.

△

Time flies, and the midterm exams have successfully concluded.

The results were announced two days after the exam, which was the day before the autumn outing.

Contrary to most students' expectations, the top-ranked second-year student this year was neither Yukino Yukinoshita nor Natsukawa Masuzu, whose appearance was comparable to Yukino's and who was highly anticipated by busybodies.

But...

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Look at your smug, monkey-like expression (Part Two)

"Yay!!"

When she received her report card, Yui Yuigahama almost couldn't help but cheer, but she was also so excited that she swayed her body in her seat like an overly excited puppy wagging its tail.

Miura Yumiko glanced casually at her report card, then turned around and looked at her friend's excited expression with some confusion. After examining it for a few moments, she reached out and took her report card.

"So excited, Yui, how well did you do on the test... Waaah!? Top 50 in the grade? No way!"

Yumiko Miura stared wide-eyed, looking back and forth at Yui Yuigahama and her report card in disbelief, as if she had seen the Ninomiya statue in the courtyard suddenly come to life and dance the Gokuraku Jodo dance on the spot, feeling a sense of doubt about reality.

Including Class J, there are ten classes in the second year, with about three hundred students. It is already difficult for students in schools with high deviation scores to rank among the top, not to mention that most of the top-ranked students are elite students in the international education program. For students in ordinary classes like them to get into the top fifty in the grade is no easy task.

However, on this report card, next to Yui Yuigahama's name, who had been hovering around 150th place for years, was clearly printed the words "50th in the grade," with the scores for each subject also clearly displayed, leaving no room for anyone to question it.

That's why, as if meeting her friend for the first time, Miura Yumiko absentmindedly reached out and tugged at her cheek.

"Yui, when did you become so smart?"

"Yo-Yoko, that's so rude of you!" Yui quickly removed her hand, and when she noticed that her classmates on either side were looking at her curiously, she blushed and unconsciously fiddled with the bun on her head, stammering in a flustered manner.

"Is it really that strange that I suddenly became smarter? I'm only in the top fifty of my grade, not number one. There's no need to be so surprised, is there?"

“That’s why we’re surprised, isn’t it?” Miura Yumiko said matter-of-factly, turning to her classmates for agreement. “You all agree, right?”

"Yeah yeah."

"Yui doesn't seem like a very smart person."

"It's surprising that she usually ranks 150th. I thought that a simple and cute girl like Yui was an idiot."

"You guys are going too far!" Amidst the classmates' teasing and joking, Yui Yuigahama slammed her hand on the table in annoyance, bared her teeth, and snorted threateningly at them before looking back at the report card she had taken back from Yumiko.

She checked her scores for each subject several times, seemingly unable to believe it herself, and her first-ever ranking. A smile gradually spread across her slightly stunned face.

Even during her middle school years when she worked incredibly hard to get into Soubu High School, Yui Yuigahama's grades were never outstanding, and her highest ranking in various school exams was only slightly above 100.

So when her name was finally posted on the admission list of Zongwu High School, her classmates and teachers who knew her usual grades were all surprised and assumed that she was the kind of candidate who performed better under pressure.

Yui Yuigahama knew better than anyone that although she wasn't stupid, just a little slow at times, she wasn't the type of person who was good at studying.

Unlike Yukino Yukinoshita, she doesn't read profound extracurricular books every day; she always crams at the last minute, gets terrible grades, and then just smiles bitterly and ignores them, which gives her friends the impression that she is an idiot.

Even Yui Yuigahama herself thought so; she was the kind of person who just couldn't learn it—in the field of learning, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call her a complete idiot.

And the only person who could change her since middle school was one person.

Yui Yuigahama smiled with her eyes closed, then opened them and looked at his seat diagonally in front of her, her gaze falling directly on his profile.

"Xiaoyou, I did it!"

Suppressing the urge to ignore the teacher on the stage and rush over to him to claim credit, Yui Yuigahama pressed her hand to her chest, feeling the burning, surging emotions within, and took a deep breath.

"As long as I work hard, I can get closer to you step by step... As long as I work hard, one day I will make you fall in love with me!"

This report card is the best proof.

Effort will not betray oneself, and the hard work will never be in vain—given this, her feelings also have a chance to be fulfilled.

Two years have passed, then three, four years... even after becoming a college student, even after entering the workforce.

As long as he's still willing to let me stay by his side.

Even if the land is full of thorns and brambles, we will never retreat!

"That's right, I must become a better version of myself!"

At this moment, Yui Yuigahama, clutching her report card, felt as if she had grasped a ray of hope.